Cleveland police officer Timothy Loehmann called himself a sitting duck after he and his training partner confronted Tamir Rice next to a city recreation center in November 2014. It was a curious choice of descriptions.

In a stoic interview with homicide and internal affairs investigators days after he shot and killed Tamir, Loehmann described the imminent danger he perceived in the split second before firing his service weapon.

"The threat just became incredible. I had to make the decision fast because Frank and I were in immediate danger. If the subject did pull out the gun and point it towards us, I would have been shot and possibly my partner. ... Plus, I was stuck in the doorway and my partner was still seated in the driver's seat."

Loehmann's perception of having been physically placed in a gravely compromised position was understandable. If Tamir Rice had possessed a real gun, if "the subject" had been a real killer, the officer was in grave danger.

The same goes for Frank Garmback, the training officer, who drove both policemen to the scene after hearing a report of a male with a gun. When he made the decision to directly confront Tamir with his vehicle, he potentially rendered both officers sitting ducks.

But who was really the sitting duck?

Tamir's options were limited with the blink of an eyelash. When the 12-year-old boy reached into his waistband for what turned out to be a non-lethal airsoft pistol, the responding officers had already put the threesome into an irreversible position. The die had been cast.

Tamir Rice had become the biggest sitting duck of all.

Hindsight is 20/20. It doesn't bring back lives, but it must not be ignored. The recently released video of the officers testifying about their mindsets and actions at the time of the confrontation with Tamir is somewhat revealing. It usefully reminds us of the extraordinary challenges faced by police officers at any given moment. It's important that we understand the demands that we place on our police and how they are trained to serve and protect.

Cleveland is rife with violent crime. There are nearly daily reports of fatal and non-fatal gunfire. Predators and criminal opportunists run rampant. Vigilant policing is the primary force that keeps this town from being completely lost to those with no respect for law and order or life.

But still, many in this town believe Tamir was executed and that no one has been held accountable. These people are completely closed to the suggestion that the boy may have contributed to his own death. Anger and grief over Tamir continues to simmer, and it goes unaddressed at the city's own peril.

Some questions have never been satisfactorily answered. Why didn't Garmback briefly size up the situation and the extent of the actual threat posed by Tamir before confronting him?

As the training officer for Loehmann, it's still not clear why the senior man choose to put his trainee right atop a suspect believed to be armed and possibly dangerous. And why did a police dispatcher not relay to the responding officers that a 911 caller had suggested that Tamir was a juvenile, and that his gun was probably a "fake"?

Why was that same dispatcher only recently suspended for eight days without pay for her role in this tragedy? Perhaps we'll never know. But if we don't learn many lessons from this colossal failure of policing, we are doomed to repeat it.

Just as it is hard to watch video of Tamir being gunned down, it is also revealing to observe Garmback's sorrow as he described for investigators his horror when he realized he and his partner had killed a child. He wept as he described watching Tamir's desperate struggle to live, as well as his impatience with the EMS and fire paramedics' response to the scene.

It humanized the officer. It also drove home another point.

We must continue to gain a better understanding of what constitutes a threat to the community as well as police. We must continue to work diligently on police and community relations and communication.